


1 in 14,000,605. One

by Arctic_Pheonix



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Strange's plan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 01:00:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20144932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arctic_Pheonix/pseuds/Arctic_Pheonix
Summary: 1 in 14,000,605. Odds so small the human mind can’t comprehend, an outlier, not worth looking into, considering. Something that may as well be impossible yet it was the only acceptable outcome, it wasn’t that they couldn’t afford to lose, they wouldn’t allow it.Tony Stark doesn’t care about the odds, he will do as he always does. Fight until he can’t anymoreDr. Strange doesn’t see the odds, doesn’t care for them. He sees a timeline where they win and decides that that’s the one that will happen.The odds aren’t 1 in 14,000,605, they are 1 in 1.





	1 in 14,000,605. One

Dr. Stephen Strange, guardian of the Time Stone watched timeline after timeline. Timeline after timeline. He was yet to find one where they win, yet to find one where he succeeds, where any of them do. The more he watches the more despair he feels. Then it happens, their closest victory yet, Thanos wins but the snap is his last act. Strange feels hope for the first time since he started, he searches harder, faster. More and more timelines pop up where they almost win.

Timeline after timeline, but now he has hope.

Strange always dies with the snap. He never makes it past then so he needs to stop the snap. Tony Stark never makes it to the snap. This timeline is like all the others until Tony gets stabbed with his own weapon. Strange watches as he gives up the stone watches as he dooms the universe and scoffs. This timeline won't work, not if Thanos gets the stone. Then it happens, Thor’s axe meets Thanos’s chest and the snap happens, as usual. Only this time Tony is alive, Captain America, Black Widow, Bruce Banner, Hawkeye and Thor. That’s odd, at least two of them have died each time. Strange watches as the people on Titan turn to dust, watches as Peter Parker stumbles, the snap affecting him… Hold on. Parker survived in the five million other timelines, what’s going on?

Strange’s view of the timeline cuts with his death as usual. He goes to move on, this is a lost cause. Just as he’s about to move he sees it, a spark. His view relights, he can see the timeline again. How? It doesn’t matter, it’s been five years. He watches as he gathers up those on Titan, watches as he calls up everyone. Stares in shock at the army he gathers to fight Thanos.

Thanos lacks the gauntlet and is talking of total eradication. His daughters are here, both of them, one is there twice. His whole army, including those Strange knows, are dead. Strange watches as Thanos snaps again, he’s won a second time, but Strange knows now. They can undo the first snap.

Timeline after timeline. He goes through hundreds of thousands in a mere moment. He isn’t just hopeful, he’s determined. He knows they can do this, he knows!

In all of them he gives up the stone, Thanos makes off and Tony lives. Sometimes they undo the first snap, sometimes they fail. Why do they fail sometimes? What common denominator is needed for the undoing? Strange searches faster, harder, he has to find it, just one timeline where they win. Then it hits him, far harder than Thanos ever could. Every time the snap is undone Peter Parker was killed by the snap. He’s found it. Timelines later Strange realizes why Parker needed to die, motivation. Stark needed motivation!

It’s almost funny, Strange had said he’d sacrifice the boy if need be and it turns out that doing so was their only hope. Still, he’s yet to see victory. Strange looks, he searches and comes up empty. Then in one timeline he comes out of his search and informs Tony that it’s almost hopeless and everything changes.

Stark has a daughter. The girl he loves joins the battle. Hawkeye is involved now. And they come so much closer to winning, the battle goes on for longer. The iron gauntlet stays out of Thanos’s reach longer. Banner and War machine survive. One sentence completely changed the future. Strange tries every variation of it’s hopeless he can, none more successful. That is until he tells Tony the odds and Strange learns something, never tell Tony Stark the odds. Stark comes within seconds of succeeding, mere moments separate him from preventing universal omnicide and failure. 

So 1 in 13,997,547 wasn’t terrible enough? Then let's see what it would take. Every change of the odds changes something and they get a little closer to winning. Tony’s reaction time get’s a little faster, the battle rages a little longer, a little harder. The captain hits a little harder, the backup arrives a little sooner, Ant-Man saves Banner and War Machine a little faster. Spider-Man goes from barely helping to taking out a decent portion of the enemy. Strange is pulled away from the fighting to stop a flood of water and is positioned just right to assure Tony that this is it, they will win. And win they do, Tony snaps, Thanos’s forces turn to dust. The cost is great, Stark dies.

He’s found it, they win. 14,000,605 timelines and 14,000,604 don’t matter at all because Strange found the one that’s happening. Thanos wouldn’t know, never could but they’ve already won. Strange couldn’t continue, the search would take a toll on him if he went on but that didn’t matter because he’d succeeded.

“What was that?” Strange looked at the group around him and answered.

“I went forward in time, to view alternate futures. To see all possible outcomes to the coming conflict.” Quill asked him how many he saw, he couldn’t understand just what that number entails, “14,000,605.”

“How many did we win in?” Stark had hoped just as he always did at this moment. Just as Strange knew he would, it never failed. Strange looked him in the eye, that desperation is recognizable to him. Strange stared at the man who would crack time travel in five years simply because he might save his son, _ Might. _

“One,” And like that, no one had any hope. Stark lost all hope in that moment as well but the look in his eye wasn’t of a man that had given up it was the look of a man who'd decided that fate can go fuck itself. Strange wasn’t aware of what made Tony go after time travel, wasn’t aware that he wouldn’t spend the next five years on it. Strange didn’t know that his words had somehow led a rat across a control panel five years from now, all he knew was that in that moment Thanos had lost. After all, sometimes you had to lose the battle in order to win the war.

Strange had hours left and one more thing he had to say. He gave up the time stone as planned, watched as the snap impacted parker as planned. Strange looked to Tony and said the five words that meant all the difference.

“We’re in the endgame now.” And with that, he was gone. Tony and Nebula were alone on the planet. Tony Stark had a long hard five years ahead of him. Iron Man would make the ultimate sacrifice. At the end of everything Strange held up a finger and Tony Stark reacted.

“And I. Am. Iron Man.” Tony Stark snapped his fingers and Strange would make sure he went down in history as the hero he was. Stark was their best defender and he had told Strange something up on Titan.

“You see it to right?” Stark gestured at the spider-themed hero, “He’ll be the best of us you know, he can learn from our mistakes, he will be better.”

Stark was right. As Strange watched the man’s family at his funeral he mussed that the Spider had the best role model he could.

**Author's Note:**

> Just really wanted to write this, I've been thinking about it and I thought Strange was looking for how to win not if they do and so... This!
> 
> Discord, https://discord.gg/N4YM6pD


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